Profits and Pills: The Most Expensive Drugs Quiz

Pharmaceutical companies say dramatic and sometimes overnight price increases on prescription medications reflect high costs of research and the benefits of new promising cures. How bad could it be? Take this quiz to test how much you know about how and why some medicines cost way more than others.

Start Quiz »

You scored

0 out of 30

Question 1 of 30

Which ex-pharmaceutical CEO raised the retail price of the anti-malarial Daraprim by 5,000 percent shortly after his company bought the drug?

Martin Shkreli

That was Shkreli, founder and now former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals.

Sam Waksal

Michael Pearson

Question 2 of 30

Of the 28 new drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2013, how many were considered specialty products?

one

nine

19

Of the 28 drugs approved in 2013, 19 were specialty drugs.

28

Question 3 of 30

What's the estimate of how much people in the U.S. will spend on specialty drugs by 2020?

about $400 million

about $400 billion

It's estimated that specialty drug prices will more than quadruple, bringing it to about $400 billion.

about $3.2 trillion

Question 4 of 30

Who typically sets the sticker price for a new prescription medication?

consumers

drug manufacturers

The drug manufacturers will typically set the price.

health insurers

Question 5 of 30

How many of the 12 new cancer-fighting drugs approved in 2012 retailed above $100,000 for a year's treatment?